Cake Decorating Ideas!

I thoroughly enjoy decorating cakes! I haven’t yet taken the leap into the business world of selling my cakes to others because I don’t feel that I am consistent enough, but I really do have fun doing it! I’d like to share some of my previous cakes with you all to give you ideas for your future parties. All of these are relatively simple, and don’t require much more than what you would find in your kitchen on a given day.

The first cake I ever made professionally was for my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding in June 2008. They asked for a cupcake-cake (which was not yet in style at this time), and I decided to do three different flavours: chocolate, lemon chiffon, and hummingbird (pineapple, nut, & spice cake). I think they turned out really beautiful, and I managed to break three hand blenders in the process of making all of the icing for these cupcakes! The top cake was chocolate as this was the bride’s favourite cake! All of the flavours were very summery and delicious!

Cake Decorating Ideas!

When I met my (now) husband, I got the opportunity to start making kids cakes! The first cake I made for O was a Skylanders theme. This was a vanilla cake with white icing and I used storebought fondant around the cake. I died the fondant grey to make the portal, and then cut out the white pieces on the side to make the totems – then glued them on with water. O thought this cake was really cool because Skylanders Giants had just been released and he got two new giant figures on top of the cake!

Cake Decorating Ideas!Cake Decorating Ideas!

The next year I asked O what kind of cake he wanted and he said spiderman! For this cake I used red coloured fondant over the whole cake and then piped white in for the eyes and black in for the webbing. This was a super easy cake to make and looked really good in the end!

Cake Decorating Ideas!Cake Decorating Ideas!

The next year, O wanted anything Pokemon. He had a lot of kids and family at his party that year, so I did two cakes. The Pikachu cake was an ice cream cake with whipped cream as the frosting, and the Charmander cake was a banana cake with cream cheese icing. Both cakes used fondant to make the images and then I piped black icing around the outside to crisp up the images. The Charmander cake was extra cool because when the candles were lit, it looked like he was blowing a fireball!

Cake Decorating Ideas!Cake Decorating Ideas!

This year O had a family birthday and a kid birthday, so for the family birthday he got a BB-8 cake! I baked three 8-inch round cakes and then cut and shaped them until they were in this shape and glued them together with icing. This was supposed to be a root beer flavoured cake, but since we only used a can of soda and didn’t have any root beer extract, it fell a little flat. 🙁

Cake Decorating Ideas!

For his kid birthday party, O asked for a very specific cake – a cartoon orca and a cartoon shark who are fighting each other with a squiggly line in the middle that says O vs S. I delivered as best I could! I made this one into an oreo cake (even looks like an Oreo with the icing in the middle and the two black chocolate cake layers. It was super delicious too because the icing was simply whipped cream with a bit of icing sugar and crushed up Oreo cookies, so it wasn’t overly sweet!

Cake Decorating Ideas!Cake Decorating Ideas!

For another friend’s birthday, I made this Pikachu cake using two 8 inch round pans and then cutting them and gluing together with icing.

Cake Decorating Ideas!

Using the same concept, I made this bunny cake for Easter a few years ago. I used coconut to give the bunny fur and then mini marshmallows around the outside to add whimsy.

Cake Decorating Ideas!

Again, using the same concept I made this elephant cake out of two 9 inch rounds. The head is the centre of the round and the legs and trunk are the outside portions.

Cake Decorating Ideas!

To make a second type of elephant cake, I used this DIY that I found on Pinterest to make the elephant. The cake is angelfood, so to make it into a layer cake, I baked it in two 8-inch rounds with high edges. I did not grease the pans, but I did use a piece of circular parchment paper on the bottom to make them easier to remove. Then I used a whipped cream frosting (whipping cream whipped to stiff peaks with about 1/2 cup icing sugar added in at the end), and used fondant to make the 75. I think this cake was a smashing success, and it has a keepsake attached to it if you choose to dry out the elephant. 🙂

Cake Decorating Ideas!Cake Decorating Ideas!Cake Decorating Ideas!

My husband is a big Green Arrow fan, and he doesn’t usually celebrate his birthday, so I finally got the chance to make him a cake this year! This is a white cake with buttercream icing and I used fondant to make all of the accents. (The arrow is a skewer stick with fondant feathers.) It was fun to make, and we accented it with his Green Arrow Pop Figure.

Cake Decorating Ideas!Cake Decorating Ideas!

This construction cake was also super duper easy! By using a fluffy egg white frosting, I was able to mound extra frosting on top of the cake and then on the “under construction” side I simply scraped the icing as low to the cake as possible and piled on cake crumbs. Add tonka trucks or lego machines, and voila – you’re done!

Cake Decorating Ideas!

For this Star Wars cake, I made a 9×13 banana cake (any cake would do), layered it with a thick layer of cream cheese icing in the middle, and a very thin layer around the outside. I then applied a very thin layer of black dyed fondant to the outside of the cake. I used yellow fondant for the Star Wars logo and then the remaining cream cheese icing for the writing and edge icing. Then I had O’s help with lego placement to make this the perfect cake for any lego fan!

Cake Decorating Ideas!Cake Decorating Ideas!

For a more elegant cake that is still quite simple, I did a simple chocolate cake with chocolate icing. I then melted dark and white chocolate, put it in a piping bag, and drizzled over the cake in both directions. To finish it off, I then layered blackberries and rasperries around in a nice design.

Cake Decorating Ideas!Cake Decorating Ideas!

And last, but certainly not least was this easy and delicious black forest cake! Simple black cake with layers of whipped cream icing and cherry pie filling, then smoosh chocolate cake crumbs around the outside, spoon some pie filling on top, pipe whipped cream around the top to make it pretty and add maraschino cherries for some extra elegance!

Cake Decorating Ideas!Cake Decorating Ideas!

If you have an idea for a cake you’d like to see, please tell me in the comments and I will be sure to give it a try!